The above association of ideas was doubtlessly accentuated by the fact that the word pilli means a nobleman, a chieftain; thence he terms pilconetl=the son of a nobleman and pilhua=he who has sons (pil in this case meaning son and hua=possessor of). This latter fact could have been very aptly conveyed in the picture-writings by employing fingers to express the sound “pilli.” The number of sons a chieftain had could thus be easily expressed by his exhibiting a corresponding number of fingers. I shall revert to this possibility presently, and now referring to fig. 29, no. 2, direct attention to the obvious intention to express the idea that the fire produced was distributed to the four quarters by means of the figures, painted in symbolical colors, three of which are visible. Another picture in the same Codex represents four similar figures springing towards the cardinal points from a source or fountain of [pg 093] water, whilst a priest above a triangular cloak7 holds a pair of weapons (?) in his hands (fig. 29, no. 1). If carefully studied, these groups seem to corroborate the derivation of the name Mexico, given above. What is more, the first group affords an explanation of the meaning and purpose of three strange recumbent stone figures bearing circular vessels, which have been respectively found in Mexico, Tlaxcala and Chichen-Itza and are now preserved at the National Museum in Mexico. They furnish the most convincing proof that an identical cult and symbolism had existed in these widely-separated localities. The conclusion I have previously expressed, that an actual connection had been established between Chichen-Itza and Mexico by the Maya high priest Kukulcan, or Quetzalcoatl, is thus corroborated by undeniable evidence, which will be supplemented later on.

The three monoliths have been described and illustrated in the Anales del Museo Nacional, Mexico, vol. 1, p. 270, by the late Señor Jesus Sanchez, and are here reproduced. The statue exhumed at Chichen-Itza by Dr. Le Plongeon (pl. iv, fig. 1) closely resembles that found at Tlaxcalla in Mexico (pl. iii, fig. 2). Dr. Brinton, who erroneously describes the Chichen-Itza statue as representing “a sleeping god,” points out the extremely important fact that there was a divinity worshipped in Yucatan called Cum-ahau, “the lord of the vase,” who is designated in a MS. dictionary as “Lucifer (the lord of the underworld) the principal native divinity.” He adds there is good ground to suppose that this lord of the vase ... was the god of fertility common to the Maya and Mexican cult (Hero-Myths, p. 165). Considering that the great market-place in the capital was actually the centre to which the entire product of the land was periodically carried from its remotest confines, was there classified, exchanged or distributed far and wide, the comparison to a central flowing source of maintenance was most appropriate.

That some particular spot in or near the city should have gradually assumed importance and sanctity as marking the exact centre of the metropolis, i. e., of the integral whole of the Mexican [pg 095] “empire” is but natural and it is not surprising to find that solemn rites were performed on this spot. In one of the chronicles to which I shall revert, it is stated that the New Fire was at times kindled on the prostrate body of a slave, and this curious statement is corroborated by a picture in the Borgian Codex, showing a priest producing fire from a circular vessel placed on the body of a victim beneath whom a face enclosed in the open jaws of a reptile, is visible (fig. 29).

Dr. Le Plongeon, to whom much credit is due for its discovery, identified the Chichen-Itza statue, for reasons not fully explained, as a portrait of Chac-Mool, or Lord Tiger, and relates that it was found at a depth of eight metres, not far from the base of the Great Pyramid Temple. A statue of a standing tiger, with a human head and a shallow depression in its back, was also found near the same spot. I have seen other sculptured figures of human beings holding a vase, as at the hacienda near Xochicalco, Mexico, and of tigers, with circular depressions on their backs, and hope to be able to reproduce their photographs on another occasion.

The most elaborately sculptured recumbent statue is undoubtedly that which was found in or near the city of Mexico (pl. iv, fig. 3). The under surface of its base (pl. iv, fig. 5) is entirely covered with zigzag water lines and representations of roots of plants, figured as in the Codices; shells, one kind of which is the well-known symbol of parturition, and frogs which are intimately associated with water symbolism. On the hair of the statue a flower-like ornament is carved (pl. iv, fig. 4) in connection with which it should be noted that the Nahuatl for flower is xochitl, pronounced hoochitl, resembling the Maya hooch=vase. The small groups of five dots forming a border around the circular vessel are noteworthy, as they are likewise sculptured on the calendar-stone. The characteristic scrolls about the eyes of the figure show that it personates tlaloc, or earth-wine. The fertility of the earth, caused by rain, is symbolized by the wreath of ears of corn and reeds (Nahuatl, tollin) which is sculptured around the base of this, one of the most remarkable of ancient American monuments.

Señor Sanchez cites Torquemada (Monarquia Indiana, vol. ii, p. 52) as the only authority who mentions a recumbent image or idol and relates that, “in the city of Tula, there was preserved in the great temple, an image of Quetzalcoatl ... he was figured as lying down, as though going to sleep.... Out of [pg 096] reverence the image was covered with mantles or cloths.... They said that when sterile women made offerings or sacrifices to the god Quetzalcoatl, he immediately caused them to become pregnant....” He was the god of the Winds which he sent to sweep or clear the way for the tlaloques=“the earth-wine” gods.

Señor Sanchez also quotes Gama, who, basing himself upon Torquemada's authority, maintains that Tezcatzon-catl, the principal rain or octli-god, was figured as lying in an intoxicated condition, holding a vase of pulque in his hands. To the above data I add the description by Bernal Diaz, of a “figure in sculpture” he saw on the summit of the great temple of Mexico: “It was half man and half lizard (lagarto), was encrusted with precious stones and one-half of it was covered with cloths. They said that half of it was full of all the kinds of seeds that were produced in the entire land, and told [me] that it was the god of sown land, of seeds and fruits. I do not remember his name....” (Historia Verdadera, p. 71). It may be as well to note, that the Nahuatl names for lizard, cuetz-palin and topitzin, approximately convey the sound of the first syllables of the name of the culture-hero Quetzalcoatl, and of the title “topiltzin” bestowed upon him. It must, of course, remain a matter of conjecture whether the lizard was possibly employed in the above case as a pictograph, to express the sound of its name. One thing seems certain, that the Tula image of Quetzalcoatl, to which divinity barren women directed their invocations, and the statue described by Bernal Diaz as that “of the god of seeds, fruits and cultivated land,” were undoubtedly analogous to the sculptured recumbent figure found in Mexico, and exhibiting the symbols of Tlaloc, or earth-wine, of maize, and of parturition. Bernal Diaz further relates that the said image was kept on the uppermost terrace of the Great Temple, in one of five “concavities surrounded by barbacans or low walls the wood-work of which was very richly carved” (op. et loc. cit.).

The inference to be drawn from the foregoing data is that the Mexicans and the Mayas habitually kept, on the summit of their principal temple, in their centres of government, a statue holding a circular vessel and figuratively representing the “navel or centre of the land.” The group of ideas already traced in the Maya ho=capital, hom=pyramid, ho-och=vessel, o-och=maintenance, [pg 097] ho=5, thus proves to be completely carried out, for, on this consecrated spot, which emblematized the source whence all life proceeded, sacred emblematic rites were performed, the purpose of which was to typify the union, in the centre, of the four elements requisite for the productiveness of the earth.

The ground plan of the Caracol or Round Temple of Chichen-Itza, which was built, according to tradition, by the high priest Quetzalcoatl, carries out the idea of the middle and of the four quarters in so obvious a manner that it may safely be assumed that it represented the supposed centre of a dominion (fig. 30). Referring the reader to the interesting description of this remarkable edifice in Mr. William Holmes' valuable work already cited, I note that round temples, dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, are recorded to have also existed in Mexico. It seems probable that, at certain festivals, the living representatives of the Above and Below performed certain sacred rites on the summit of one of these circular edifices. It is obvious that such rites could only have been fitly performed by the coöperation of both twin rulers or Quequetzalcoas, each of whom personified two elements. The appropriate season for such rites would be that when the necessity of insuring a successful harvest would seem most urgent. It is a recorded fact that the most solemn festivals of the year were held between the vernal equinox, on which date the ritual year began, and the fall of the first rain which usually occurs about the middle of May. It is extremely significant that at this precise period the festival toxcatl took place (cf. Maya thoaxol or thoxol=distribution, giving each one a little, and o-och=food or maintenance) during which Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli were jointly honored. During this festival the “sacred dough,” named tzoalli, was a prominent feature of the ritual and it was undoubtedly associated with the idea of the life-giving union of the four elements, the Above and Below, or the male and female principles.

It can, moreover, be directly connected with the recumbent statues representing the centre; for, whilst Bernal Diaz recorded that the statue on the summit of the Great Temple held a collection of all the seeds of the land, Cortés, in his descriptive letter, gives us [pg 098] an important detail which evidently applied to the identical statue. He relates that “the bodies of the idols are made of a dough consisting of all the kinds of seeds and vegetables that these people ate. These are ground, mixed with each other and then moistened with the blood of the hearts of human victims ...” (op. cit. p. 105). Sahagun relates that an image of the earth goddess, under the title of Seven-serpents or twins, was made of this sacred dough and that offerings of all kinds of maize, beans, etc., were made before it “because she is the author and giver of all these things which sustain the life of the people” (book ii, 4). It is well known that the dough images were broken into small pieces and these were distributed to the priests and people, who partook of the substance after having prepared themselves by fasting, for the sacred rite. I draw attention to the fact that the above sacred substance is but the natural outcome of the primitive notion already mentioned, which led the hunters to spill blood upon the earth, to obtain its increased fruitfulness. An insight having been thus obtained of the origin of blood sacrifices in ancient America, it is possible to understand the meaning of certain representations showing the performance of ritual blood-offerings.

On the well-known bas-relief preserved in the National Museum of Mexico, and illustrated in the Anales (vol. i, p. 63), the two historical rulers of ancient Mexico, who figure as Quequetzalcoas, or divine twins, in exactly the same costume, are sculptured with blood flowing from their shins and in the act of piercing their ears with a sharp bone instrument. Two streams of blood descend from these and meet before falling into the open jaws figured beneath an altar, on which two conventionalized flowers appear. The two rows of teeth=tlantli, convey the sound of the affix tlan=land of, or tlalli=earth. But the most remarkable and striking instance of the group of ideas we have been studying is found on p. 62 of the Borgian Codex. On a background formed by a pool of water, there is a group which represents the “earth-mother” lying on a band of lizard-skin, with two maize plants issuing from her body and growing into a large two-branched tree, in the centre of which is a flint-knife or tecpatl. A bird stands on its summit and its branches terminate in maize plants. Its growth is being furthered by the two streams of blood which proceed from two human figures, standing at each side of the tree. One is painted black and evidently represents [pg 099] the Lord of the Below; the other is painted blue-green and represents the Lord of the Above. The blood-sacrifice they are jointly offering is that mentioned in the “Lyfe of the Indians,” as performed in order to obtain generation. Unquestionably this symbolical group would have been equally intelligible to Mayas or Mexicans, since the ideas it expressed were held in common by both people.

Before proceeding further it is necessary to state that after the native philosophers had, for an indefinite period of time, been satisfied with the artificial division of all things into four quarters, corresponding to the cardinal points and elements, the idea of the Above and Below gradually grew in importance, whilst prolonged thought and observation disclosed that the above classification demanded revision. On carefully investigating the attributes of the principal ancient Mexican deities or personifications of the elements we see that the native thinkers had found themselves obliged to make a distinction between the different forms of each element, having realized, for instance, that water not only fell to earth from the heaven, but also issued from the depths of the earth in the form of springs or fountains, and formed rivers and lakes. The final conclusions they reached in this instance are best explained by the fact that the name of the god Tlaloc means earth-wine or rain only, and that his sister “Chalchiuhtlycue” appears as the personification of wells, springs, rivers and lakes. It is evident that the classification of the ocean or sea must have given rise to much serious thought. We know how the problem was solved by the fact that the Nahuatl name for the ocean is “ilhuica-atl”=heaven-water. Accordingly, the rain and the ocean pertained to the heaven, the Above and male principle, whilst the wells, springs, rivers, etc., belonged to the earth, the Below, the female principle.

As in this case, so it was with the other elements, each of which was finally personified by a male deity and his female counterpart, which, in some cases, tended to represent its distinctive and beneficent properties. As these deities are separately treated in my commentary of the “Lyfe of the Indians” and lack of space forbids my discussing them here, I shall but mention that the ultimate native systematization of the elements, each of which was thought of as an attribute only of supreme and central divinity, corresponds exactly to that held by the Zuñis of to-day and set forth in the following account given by Mr. Frank H. Cushing and [pg 100] quoted in Dr. Brinton's “Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico” (p. 8). In quoting it I draw special attention to the numerical divisions given, as this is absolutely essential for the understanding of the statements I shall make, further on, concerning the origin of the native Calendar-systems.

“In the ceremonies of the Zuñis the complete terrestrial sphere is symbolized by pointing or blowing the smoke to the four cardinal points, to the zenith and nadir, the individual himself making the seventh number. When the celestial is also symbolized, only the six directions are added to this seven, because the individual remains the same, so that the number typifying the universe, terrestrial and celestial, becomes 13. When, on the other hand, in their ceremonies, the rite requires the officiant to typify the supra- and intra-terrestrial spheres, that is, the upper and lower worlds [the Above and the Below], the same number 13 results, as it is held that in each the sun stands for the individual, being in turn the day sun and night sun, the light and dark sun, but ever the same and therefore counts but once.”

After having gained this knowledge of native speculative philosophy, let us penetrate still further into their modes of thinking by studying, first of all, a series of symbols of the earth-mother taken from one of the most valuable of Mexican MSS., the Vienna Codex (fig. 31). In these the idea of the vase, bowl or receptacle and of the serpent predominates. It is instructive of native thought to find the vase represented as containing a child (no. 1), an agave plant (no. 7), a fire, denoting warmth (no. 3), a flower (no. 12), [pg 101] and a bunch of hair, the numerical symbol for multiplicity=the number 400 (no. 5). In no. 2, the hollow between two recurved peaks conveys the idea of a central vase; a band with eyes rests upon the peaks and denotes the heaven. No. 4 shows a double vase, enclosed in a similar representation of the nocturnal heaven—the idea to be conveyed being evidently that of a receptacle hidden in darkness. No. 9 displays an open jaw, two claws, a human heart and a stream of blood issuing from it. Nos. 10 and 11 present different shapes of the serpent's jaw, the symbol of the earth.

The double-headed serpent forming a vase containing a flower (no. 12) is particularly interesting because the flower=xoch-itl in Nahuatl, seems to suggest an intentional likeness to the Maya word for “vase, vessel or cup in general,” ho-och (Arte de la lengua Maya, Fray Pedro Beltran de Santa Rosa, ed. Espinosa, Mérida, 1859) as well as hoch or o-och=“food and maintenance.” The symbolical vase-like opening in the core of the agave plant, (no. 8) is such as is made to this day, in order to collect the juice, which, when fermented, constitutes the sacred wine of the ancient Mexicans, octli, now better known as pulque.8 As will be shown the Mexicans considered this as “the drink of life.” Its use was rigidly regulated and supervised by the “octli-lords” or “rain-priests” who distributed it at certain dances, in order to induce a state of mild intoxication amongst the participants.

As in the case of the Zuñis and Tarahumari Indians of the present day, referred to by W J McGee, in his valuable and instructive article on “The beginning of Marriage” (the American Anthropologist, vol. ix, no. 11, p. 371), “certain ceremonials typifying the fecundity of the earth and of the leading people thereof” were performed by the ancient Mexicans. These public ceremonials had also been “apparently developed to the end that the tribes and peoples might be encouraged to increase and multiply and possess the fecund earth.” They took place at the period of the year when the heaven and earth were also supposed to unite, i. e., at the beginning of the rainy season. During this the ordinary out-door occupations of the agriculturist and hunter were forcibly interrupted and the regular and periodical transportations of produce and tribute [pg 102] to the capital became impossible, owing to torrential rain, swollen rivers and impassable roads. This period of enforced shelter and confinement indoors seems to have become the definite mating season of the aborigines. At the same time the union of the sexes had obviously assumed a sort of consecration since it was intimately associated with the cosmical, philosophical and religious ideas and coincided with what was regarded as the annual union of the elements or of the Above and Below, the heaven and earth.

At that period of its history, when the Aztec race was jointly governed by a priest, personifying the heaven and a priestess, “his wife and sister,” who personified the earth, some form of sacred marriage rite must have been annually performed. The consecrated character of their union must have naturally caused their offspring to be regarded as of a holy and almost divine origin. It is easy to realize, therefore, how, in ancient Mexico, the artificial idea of “superior birth” came into existence, how a family or caste of rulers gradually developed, the members of which were entitled “teotl”=divine, whilst the men were regarded as “the sons of Heaven” and the women “the daughters of Earth.” It is obvious from this that the periodical union of the sexes, accompanied as it was, by sacred dances and the distribution of sacred wine, must have gradually assumed a semi-religious character, whilst the ritual nuptials of the “divine” rulers, typifying, as it obviously did, the grand and impressive phenomenon of the rainy season, must have caused this marriage to assume the character of a hallowed rite and surrounded it with the most elevated and intense religious sentiments of which the native mind was capable.

After this recognition of the diverging influences which guided the development of primitive marriage institutions, we will return to the rain-priests or “octli-lords,” of whom it is repeatedly stated that there were four hundred, a number corresponding to an assignment of 100 or 5×20 to each of the four provinces or divisions of the commonwealth. Their emblem was the sacred vase or receptacle and in the “Lyfe of the Indians” this will be seen figured on their mantas and shields (no. 6a). A small gold plate, of the same shape, is represented as worn by these “lords,” attached to the nose (no. 6b); and, in the same MS., the symbolical ornament is also carried by the “sister of Tlaloc.” It was evidently [pg 103] worn, like similar ornaments in other countries, hanging from the septum of the nose, and seems to have indicated a consecration of the breath as the substance of life. As an inference, merely based on an insight gained into the native modes of thought, I suggest that the explanation for the adoption of this ornament may have been the religious idea that the breath of life, dividing itself as it issues through the nostrils and uniting when inhaled, appeared to the native thinkers as a marvellous illustration of unity and duality, both ideas having constantly been present in their minds.

In the Vienna Codex there is a remarkable picture of the earth-vase resting on a slab with five divisions. A profusion of puffs or breaths of air or vapor issue from it and, branching off in two directions, form what is like the conventional tree of life, also met with in Maya bas-reliefs and documents. At the extremities of the branches which turn downwards, a serpent's eye is visible and a forked-tongue issues above the middle (fig. 32, no. 1). The intention to express an exuberant vitality and growth issuing from the symbolical vase in the centre of the earth, seems obvious. This idea is still more clearly conveyed, however, in two symbolic pictures on pp. 21 and 29 of the Codex Borgia, which are reproduced as nos. 1 and 4 in fig. 1 of this publication. The first represents the vase overflowing with water and containing a flint-knife, the generator of the vital spark. The central group is surrounded by water and by sun-rays and obviously symbolizes the union of air, light and water, constituting the Above, with the flint the emblem of the earth-mother and of Tezcatlipoca, the lord of the Under-world. Fig. 1, no. 4, represents the vase overflowing with a liquid, which is designated as being the sacred octli or earth-wine by the presence of the rabbit, which expresses the sound of its [pg 104] name=tochtli. This rebus is surrounded by the nocturnal heaven strewn with stars and the reference to the union of rain or earth-wine with earth and darkness is evident. It has been generally assumed that these images of the vase, containing the rabbit or flint-knife, represented the moon. As the latter was intimately associated with the cult of night, of the earth-mother and ideas of growth, it is not impossible that by an extension of symbolism, this was the case, but only in the same way as the sun was the emblem of the cult of the Above. On the other hand the native drawings of the moon in Sahagun's Academia MS. represent it as a crescent with a human profile on the inner side, and in a specimen preserved at the Trocadéro Museum, Paris, it is similarly carved in rock crystal.

Before proceeding to investigate the symbol further, I would point out the general resemblance of the vase, especially as a conventionalized serpent's jaw, to the “horse-shoe” shape of the problematical stone “yokes” which have been so thoroughly studied by Dr. Hermann Strebel of Hamburg (Studien ueber Steinjoche aus Mexico and Mittel-Amerika. Internationales Archiv, bd. III, 1890). Mr. Francis Parry has advanced a view concerning the meaning of these curious “sacred stones.”9 This is somewhat corroborated, as will be shown, by my recent studies, which seem to indicate pretty clearly that these symbolical objects pertained to the cult of the earth-mother. A fact of unquestionable importance, cited by Mr. Parry, is the certified existence and use, amongst southern Californian Indians of the present day, of a rudely worked stone of the same shape, in a native religious rite. The owner of one of these stones, Mr. Horatio Rust, a pioneer resident of Pasadena, southern California, exhibited it in the Anthropological Section of the World's Columbian Exposition, at Chicago, 1893, and informed me how he had observed that, occasionally, a native assembly took place at a certain spot on a mountain side, during which invocations and offerings were made. He ascertained that the ceremony on one occasion was the equivalent of the puberty-dances of similar California tribes. Having visited and examined the spot after one of these celebrations, in which six young girls, decorated with garlands of flowers, were the chief participants, he found the “sacred stone,” concealed and surrounded [pg 105] by offerings of corn, meal and pieces of money. The version published by Mr. Parry is slightly different to this account, which was given me by Mr. Rust himself.

In order fully to appreciate the close analogy between the Californian ceremonial offering of maize and meal to the emblematic stone and the ancient Mexican ritual offerings of seeds to an idol, holding a bowl or vase, it is necessary to read the following data. At the same time I would like to mention here that amongst the Hupa Indians of California, who have been termed “the Romans of Northern California by reason of their valour and far reaching dominions,” we find that “flakes or knives of obsidian or jasper, sometimes measuring 15 inches or more in length, are employed for sacred purposes and are carried aloft in the hand in certain ceremonial dances, wrapped with skin or cloth. Such knives are esteemed so sacred that the Indians would on no account part with them, and Mr. Stephen Powers found that they could not be purchased at any price.”10

It is scarcely necessary to recall here that the flint-knife was a well-known ancient Mexican emblem, nor to point out the importance of the conclusion that two well-defined symbols which played an important rôle in the Mexican and Mayan cult of the Below and of the Earth-mother, are actually found in use amongst Californian Indians at the present day.

A whole flood of light is thrown upon native symbolism, however, by the information obtained from the Zuñi Indians by Mr. F. H. Cushing. The following passage, from their Creation myth, affords the most positive confirmation of the foregoing conclusion, that the bowl or vase was the native emblem of the earth-mother. The Zuñi speaker said: “Is not the bowl the emblem of the Earth, our Mother? For from her we draw both food and drink, just as the babe draws nourishment from the breast of its mother. And round, as is the rim of the bowl, so is the horizon....”11 Interesting as this explanation of the native symbolism undoubtedly is, it becomes most important when its full significance is realized and we recognize that originally earthenware bowls themselves were looked upon as sacred emblems formed indeed out of the material of the earth itself. This fact places the invention [pg 106] and manufacture of earthen vessels in an entirely new light and enables us to conjecture and understand why, quite apart from their utility, so much care and decoration were lavished upon them and why, indeed, they were constantly buried with the dead. They obviously served as sacred emblems of the earth-mother, to whose care the dead body was confided, and originally the intention probably was to propitiate her by the beauty of the sacred vessels, which, to be symbolical of her bounty, necessarily contained food and drink.

Without pausing to discuss how easily this custom would have gradually given birth to the belief that the food and drink thus offered were intended for the use of the dead body itself, or its soul, I would point out that, in the absence of clay vessels, a stone, rough or worked, would have also served as an appropriate emblem of the earth-mother, being as it were, of her own substance. It is well known that in ancient Mexico this custom prevailed. There we also find that the bowl- or vase-shaped grave was employed, with a deeply religious and symbolical meaning. This is clearly revealed by a native drawing in the “Lyfe of the Indians,” representing a native burial. The deceased, represented by his skull only, has been placed in a deep hole, figured as a large inverted horse-shoe, painted brown and covered with small “horse-shoe” marks. The same religious symbolism which led to the adoption of a definite form of sepulchre, typifying the element earth, would evidently account for the adoption for burial purposes, of large clay vessels into which the remains of the dead were placed. In some localities these clay burial urns were, as we know, made large enough to contain the dead body itself. The difficulty of manufacturing these would naturally have led to the general adoption of cremation, simply as a means of reducing the remains so that they could repose in the sacred image of the earth. Cremation would, moreover, be a rite full of meaning since, to the native mind, earth was inseparable from its twin element fire, and both together constituted the “Below.”

It is significant to find, however, that the ashes of Montezuma's predecessors had not been finally consigned to the earth. In strict accordance with their association with the Heaven and Above, their remains were never allowed to come in contact with the earth, but were usually preserved inside of a hollow wooden effigy of the deceased, which was dressed in his insignia and placed in a high [pg 107] tower, built for the express purpose. Cortés states that there were “forty very high towers” in the enclosure of the Great Temple of Mexico and that “all of these were sepulchres of the lords” (Historia de Nueva-España, ed. Lorenzana, pp. 105 and 106). Whilst it is evident that the remains of all lords and priests of heaven should thus be assigned a place of rest high above the earth, it is equally intelligible that the bodies of the lords and priests of the Below and all women should be consigned to the interior of the earth and by preference in caves. The Codex Féjérvary contains an interesting picture of the tied-up body of a woman, recognizable as such from the head-dress and her instrument of labor, the metlatl, on which the maize is ground. The mummy rests inside of a flat effigy of a serpent's head, which seems to be carved in wood or stone and closely resembles fig. 31, no. 11. It is worth considering whether the carved stone-yokes may not have served in connection with the funeral rites of the consorts of rulers or high priestesses or priests of the Below.

If investigations of the vase or earth symbols are extended to countries lying south of Mexico, traces of the existence of an analogous cult are observable. There undoubtedly exists a striking resemblance between the form of the characteristic and peculiar stone “seats” which have been found in such numbers in Ecuador, to the vase, fig. 31, no. 3, for instance. The employment of these symbolical stones as a consecrated central altar or, possibly, as the throne of the living representative of the earth-mother, would have harmonized with the native ideas which have been traced on the preceding pages.

It was also extremely interesting to me to find the identical symbol in the Maya day-sign Caban, which has been identified by Dr. Schellhas and Geheimrath Förstemann as a symbol of the earth and is figured on p. 99 of Dr. Brinton's Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics. In the sign Caban, the horse-shoe mark is accompanied by a series of dots which seem to indicate liquid trickling from the receptacle and permeating the soil, an idea which is strictly analogous to the much more elaborate Mexican images of the vase full of rain or “earth-wine,” fig. 1, nos. 1 and 4, which, in cursive form, was employed as the emblem of the pulque, or octli lords, the priests of the earth. It is strikingly significant to find that in the Maya Codices the drops issuing from the horse-shoe are sometimes figured as trickling into the mouths of “divinities” whose [pg 108] faces also exhibit images of the sacred vase, analogous to that of the Mexican “octli-lords.”

These Maya divinities have been designated by Dr. Schellhas as god L, whose face is painted black and under whose eye a vase is painted, a peculiarity termed by Maya authorities “an ornamented eye” and which may be seen in fig. 33, iv; (2) as god M, “a second black god,” whose eye is likewise enclosed in a vase and whose hieroglyph is a vase on a black ground; and (3) as god C, of whom I shall subsequently speak in detail. (See Brinton's Primer, pp. 122 and 124.) In the case of god L, the two horse-shoe marks from which drops are falling into the mouth of the god, are surmounted by the glyph imix, to which I shall revert.

The horse-shoe mark with drops likewise occurs in the design resembling the akbal glyph, which has been interpreted as connected with akab=night. It also occurs, in Maya Codices, on bands exhibiting cross-symbols, sometimes in an inverted position and hanging from above and sometimes standing on two of the three mounds which are a feature of these interesting glyphs. Postponing a detailed discussion of these, I will but emphasize here that, in the Maya Codices the vase, cursively drawn as a “horse-shoe” mark, is proved to be intimately connected with the ideas of liquid falling from above, and constituting the drink of divinities and symbols associated with the sacred vase, night and darkness, all attributes of the Below. We shall next demonstrate that it was alternately placed, on the Maya Caban glyph, with a curious sign consisting of a pea-shaped black dot, to which a curved and wavy line is attached. This is always figured as issuing [pg 109] from above the dot, then extending downwards and half around it and terminating in a descending, undulating line.

I submit the following to the consideration of Maya specialists: It seems to me that this sign presents an extremely realistic drawing of the seed of a monocotyledonous plant, such as the maize or Indian corn, in its first stage of germination, when the radicle, having issued from the apex, turns downwards in characteristic fashion and penetrates into the earth. Besides the realism of the native drawing there can be no doubt that the image of a sprouting maize-seed is the most expressive and appropriate accompaniment to the symbol of fertilizing rain, on an earth-symbol, and I am unable to understand how Drs. Cyrus Thomas, Seler, Schellhas and Brinton could have overlooked the realism in this image of a sprouting seed, and concluded that it was a portrayal of “fermented liquor trickling downward,” a “nose-ornament,” or a “twisted lock of hair,” “a cork-screw curl.” The latter interpretation was made by Dr. Schellhas because he found the sign in connection with female figures in the Codices, which undoubtedly is a fact of extreme interest, as it furnishes a valuable proof that the Mayas associated the earth with the female principle.

Dr. Schellhas, however, records his observation that the sign caban occurs as a symbol of fruit-bearing earth, in the Codex Troano, as it is figured with leaves of maize (p. 33) or with climbing plants issuing from it and winding themselves around a pole (p. 32). Geheimrath Förstemann connects the day-name caban with “cab” to which Perez, in his dictionary, attaches the meaning of “earth, world and soil” (Die Tages götter der Mayas. Globus, vol. lxxiii, no. 9) and adds that the hieroglyph decidedly designates the earth. At the same time he interprets what I regard as the maize-grain and its radicle, as possibly representing a bird in its flight upwards, and he merely describes the accompanying inverted horse-shoe with dots, without attaching any positive meaning to it. It must be added that Dr. Förstemann himself states that he is not satisfied with his own interpretation of these two symbols, the first of which, the seed and radicle, likewise occurs in the day-sign cib, to which I shall recur.

If any doubt remains as to the signification of the day-sign cab, I think it will be dispelled when it is shown that the name cab, or caban is obviously related to the adjective, adverb and preposition cabal or cablil, which signifies low, below, on the earth, in, beneath [pg 110] and under. The frequent association of the cab glyph with the image of a bee, as in the Codex Troano, is partially explained by the fact that the Maya word for honey is cab, for honey-bee is yikil-cab. It affords at all events, an instance, in Maya hieroglyphic writing, of a method of duplicating the sound of a word analogous to that which I detected in Mexican pictography, and named complementary signs in my communication on the subject, published as an appendix to my essay on Ancient Mexican Shields (Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, Leyden, 1892). On the other hand the day name and sign cib, on which the sprouting grain is also figured, seems to be related to the verb cibah=to will, to occur, to happen, to take place. The allusion contained in both glyphs is obviously the same and signifies, in the first place, the hidden process of germination which takes place under the surface of the soil, and is associated with the idea of the female principle in Nature.

The seed and radicle, horse-shoe and rain-drops, are also distinguishable on a vessel on page 35 of the Dresden Codex and on a small three-legged vase, which is figured by Doctor Brinton (Primer, 118) as the day sign ch'en. This vase is surmounted by two in-curving projections and offers a close analogy to a sacred vase with superstructure (fig. 33, ii) from which projects a peculiar open and double receptacle, into which a priest is sowing small seeds. The interior of this bowl is represented as hollow, and containing what I shall show further on to be a native symbol for Earth: three little mounds. On another bowl, in front of this one, a bird is sitting and presumably hatching. In another portion of the same MS. a similar bowl is figured containing three seed fruits and capsules, resembling pomegranates or poppy-heads (fig. 33, iii).

The tree next to which the first two symbolical bowls are placed deserves to be carefully studied, for the trunk is crowned by four stems bearing single leaves and is encircled by a serpent, can, the homonym for the numeral four=kan. A fringed mantle and a scroll hang from the coils of the serpent's body, two footsteps are painted on the scroll and, pointing downwards, express “descent,” as do also the falling drops of liquid on the stems of the tree which grows from a peculiar glyph with subdivisions, which has points of resemblance with the glyph under the footless divinity (fig. 33, i). An obsidian mirror, with cross bars, is painted in front of the latter, which displays the same descending footsteps [pg 111] on its mantle. The head and eyes of a snail, the symbol of parturition, are above its face and a wreath of flowers crowns its head. Tedious as such a minute analysis may seem, it is nevertheless necessary, in order to gain a perception of the extent to which symbolism was practised in the picture writings found in the Maya MSS., accompanied by the cursive calculiform glyphs. It seems that, in no. ii, we have a presentation of the Maya “tree of life,” and that scrolls, on which descending footsteps are depicted, are intended to convey the meaning that life is descending from Above into the egg and seeds by virtue or decree of the celestial power. It should be noted here that the phenomenon of a living bird issuing from the hard and inanimate egg-shell had made as deep an impression upon the ancient philosophers in Mexico as elsewhere, and that the power “to form the chicken in the shell” was deemed one of the most marvellous attributes of “the divine Moulder or Former,” as is further set forth in the “Lyfe of the Indians.”

The foregoing illustrations establish, at all events, that the Mayas, like the Mexicans, associated the sacred vase with seeds and germination. The vase, illustrated by Doctor Brinton, exhibits the seed and radicle; and this is also found on the symbol for earth, which, in the Cortesian Codex, is associated with the image of a serpent, possibly the equivalent of the Mexican Cihuacoatl, or female serpent.

If, after mustering this close array of analogies, we next examine the glyph cib, we find that it exhibits the seed and radicle in the centre of a square, three sides of which are decorated with what Doctor Brinton has termed the “pottery decoration(?).” This consists of short lines, such as are employed in Mexican pictography, in the well-known sign for tlalli, or land, which is usually surrounded on three sides by a fringe, presumably symbolizing plants and grass, a “fringe” of vegetation and verdure. In the glyph cib, already referred to, I am inclined to see but a cursive rendering of the same idea, with the seed and radicle in the centre and the fringed border barely indicated by a few short lines. The same border is found repeated on three sides of the head of a frequently recurring personage whom Doctor Schellhas designates as “God C, of the Ornamented face.” In his extremely valuable work, Die Göttergestalten der Mayahandschriften, this careful investigator records the various combinations in which this God C occurs in the [pg 112] Codices and impartially weighs the possibilities of its meaning. Geheimrath Förstemann has made the important observation that the figure of God C occurs in combination with the day-sign, chuen, of the Maya calendar, which coincides with the Mexican day-sign azomatli=monkey.

I am unable to agree with my venerable friend in identifying God C, with Polaris. As Doctor Schellhas rightly observes, the fact that God C is found in combination with the signs of all the four quarters disproves an identification with Polaris. What is more, God C is frequently represented as receiving in his mouth drops of liquid falling from a cursive vase placed above his head—a detail which clearly connects him with earth and the “earth-wine.” In the Mexican MSS. we find the monkey intimately connected with the octli or earth-wine gods as, for instance, in the “Lyfe of the Indians.” I therefore reserve a more detailed discussion of this subject for my notes on this MS. and return to the glyphs caban and kan or can.

Just as it has been shown that the first may signify cabal=the Below, so it is evident that the second is connected with the preposition and adverb canal, signifying “above, on top of, on high.” Dr. Brinton sees in the kan symbol a presentation of a polished stone, or shell pendant, or bead, and cites the Maya dictionary of Motul which gives kan as the name for “beads or stones which served the Indians as money and neck ornaments.” In connection with this important statement I revert to the carved shell-gorgets which have been found in the mounds and ancient graves in the Mississippi valley and exhibit Maya influence. The greater number of these exhibit a carved serpent (which in Maya is kan) in their centres and this fact affords a clue to the possible origin of the Maya name for a neck ornament given in the Motul dictionary. It is undeniable that all evidence unites in proving that the ancient peoples of the Mississippi valley were in traffic, if not more intimately connected, with a Maya-speaking people and came under the influence of the ideas and symbolism current in Yucatan.

Returning to the employment of the glyph kan in Maya Codices, for more reasons than I am able to enumerate here, I conclude it served as an indicative of the Above or Heaven. It is a curious fact that the Maya word for cord is kaan, whilst the name for sky is caan. I cannot but think, therefore, that a carved pendant with a serpent effigy=a kan, worn on a cord=kaan, must have been associated [pg 113] by the Mayas with the Heaven or sky=caan, and that this linguistic coincidence must have been a strong factor in the development of the symbolism attached to the glyph can or kan.

An interesting fact, which I shall demonstrate by a large series of illustration from native Codices in a chapter of my forthcoming work on the ancient Calendar System, will show that in their hieratic writings, the ancient Mexican scribes represented the nocturnal heaven or sky as a circle composed of a cord, to which stars were attached, whilst the centre of the circle exhibited one or four stars. In my opinion the origin and explanation of the association of the cord with stars are clearly traceable to the above mentioned fact that in the Maya tongue the word for cord, kaan, closely resembles the sound of the word caan=sky. The presence of the cord in the Mexican symbols is, therefore, another indication of their Maya origin. A proof that the Mayas also employed the cord as a symbol of the sky, or heaven, is furnished by the much-discussed lentil-shaped stone altar found at Copan, a small outline of which is represented in fig. 21, no. 1. In order fully to understand the meaning expressed by this stone, it is necessary to bear in mind how indissolubly the idea of something circular was associated by the Mayas and Mexicans with their conception of the vault of heaven resting on the horizon, and of the Above, consisting of the two fluid elements, air and water.

It is scarcely necessary to refer again here to more than one authority for the statement that the temples of the air (of the Above) were circular, and the reason given by the natives for this was that “just as the air circulates around the vault of the heaven, so its temple had to be of a round shape.”12 As a contrast to this conception, the influence of which is also obvious in the form of the round temples and towers of the ruined cities of Central America, I would cite the allusions to the solid earth contained in the sacred books of the Mayas, the Popol Vuh, as being “the quadrated earth, four-cornered, four-sided, four-bordered.” These data establish the important fact, to which I shall recur, that the native philosophers associated the Above, composed of air and water, with the rounded, and the Below, composed of fire and water, with the angular form.

The Copan stone altar exhibits the circular form and is surrounded [pg 114] by a sculptured cord which conveys the sound of its name kaan or caan=heaven. On it a cup-shaped depression=ho-och, marks the sacred centre of the heaven, the counterpart to the terrestrial bowl whence all life-giving force proceeded. Two curved lines diverge from this and divide the vaulted circle into two parts. The curve in the lines may be interpreted as conveying motion or rotation whilst the division of the sky may have been intended to signify the eastern or male and the western or female portion of the heaven, the whole being an abstract image of central rulership and of a dual principle incorporating the four elements. It is obvious that the meaning intended to be conveyed might also include the duality of the Heaven or Above, composed of the union of the elements air and water. By painting the stone in two or four colors either of these meanings could have been expressed. In either case it will be recognized, however, that much as Dr. Ernest Hamy's deductions concerning this altar have been criticised, the learned director of the Trocadéro Museum, Paris, was undoubtedly right in recognizing that the stone is a cosmical symbol, intended to convey the idea of a two-fold division and analogous to the Chinese tae-keih which it resembles, with the difference that the Copan sign is more complex exhibiting, as it does, a central bowl-shaped depression. A glimpse at the other symbols in fig. 21 will show that the identical idea is expressed in the Mexican signs exhibiting a central circle, usually accompanied by a four-fold division.

An analogous attempt to express the same native idea is recognizable in the peculiar mushroom-shaped stone figures, represented by a number of examples at the Central American exposition recently held at Guatemala,13 and recently described by the distinguished geologist and ethnologist, Dr. Carl Sapper. The specimens had been collected in San Salvador and Guatemala and “resemble great stone mushrooms” inasmuch as each consists of three well-defined parts, a square pedestal from the midst of which rises an almost cylindrical “stem” supporting a large circular solid top, flat underneath and rounded above. The cylindrical support is carved in the rough semblance of a human form, which, in some instances, has rays issuing from its head.

An acquaintance with the fundamental ideas of native cosmogony [pg 115] enables us to recognize that the square stone base typifies the solid part of the universe, the Below, whilst the vaulted circle above typifies the heaven, the Above. The figure standing between both is evidently an image of a central lord and ruler, and the entire image is in accord with the native mode of thought as set forth in Mr. Frank H. Cushing's report already cited and in the symbols which have been figured.

After reading Mr. Cushing's account of the native American philosophy, preserved to the present day by the Zuñis, it is impossible not to realize how clearly the mushroom-images materialize the identical ideas which constitute, indeed, the keynote of native thought and can be traced in each centre of ancient American civilization. I am inclined to think that these stone images were, originally, painted with the colors assigned to the four quarters, which would render the symbolism more apparent. The existence of these images in a restricted area of territory, seems, moreover, to indicate that they had been invented there, possibly under the influence of a religious and political creed with particular reference to the union, in a single individual, of the power and attributes of the Above and Below—an idea which strongly contrasts with Mexico and Yucatan, where the idea of duality prevailed to such an extent that, by creating two distinct religions and governments, it ultimately led to the disintegration of the greatest of native empires and its fall, from which it was only rallying at the time of the Conquest. It is also possible that the Guatemala images are the expression of the reversion to a more ancient form of philosophy or government when it had been realized that dual government led to dissensions and disintegration. At all events the rude mushroom figures testify that the conception of a single celestial or terrestrial ruler of the Above and the Below filled the minds of their makers at a time, the exact date of which it would be of utmost importance to determine, if this were only possible. It is also interesting to note the curious analogy presented by these figures to the well-known statement by Confucius that, “the sage is united to Heaven and Earth so as to form a triad, consisting of Heaven, Earth and Man.”

The association of the round form and of the peak with the Above and of the square and bowl with the Below can be also detected in the form of native American architecture, as exemplified, for instance, by the contrasting shapes of two temples figured on [pg 116] page 75, of the Borgian Codex (fig. 34) which were obviously dedicated to the two prevailing cults. One of these is surmounted by a tau-shaped thatched roof with a flat top and turned-down ends. The dedication of this temple to Night or star-cult is conveyed in this case, by the sign for star on a black ground inserted in the roof.14